He believes recent gov-ernments have lost sight of the core principle of a democratic society.

"Governments only have one role: To look after people who can't look after themselves," he said.

"Most of the rest of us are law abiding, we pay our taxes, we don't drive too crazily. Mostly people are law abiding.

"You need governments to look after people who are in need and it's the general consensus from those who know that those most in need are going to be most affected.

"And that's a terrible state of affairs, even if we have to fix the budget."

Mr Martin said governments needed to back up their austerity measures with action if they wanted the community to believe them.

"Joe Hockey said we're paying $500million to hold the G20 Conference. $500million for a talkathon," he said.

"It's a previous government decision and the Liberal Government have decided to go ahead with it. $500million. Imagine how much that would do for this hospital. That's for a talk-athon that will do nothing."

Mr Martin does not buy the notion taxing the rich will kill the economy.

"For the life of me - and I'm part of it - can't see why people who make good salary can't be taxed accordingly," he said.

"They can afford to pay a lot of money and yet they're not.

"There's some belief that you'll stop spending if you hit the wealthy with tax. It just won't happen."

In the USA business and wealthy families might pay low taxes, but there is a long-standing tradition of philanthropy, which Mr Martin would like more Australians to embrace.

"America has this tithing principle of 11% and if you can't give the money you can at least give some time," he said.

"We don't do philanthropy that well, it isn't part of our culture."

He said Sydney leads the way as Australia's most generous city.

When they were doing fundraisers for Chris Masters and RedKite (a fund that supports kids with cancer) they raised $1million with 400 people in Sydney.

The next Saturday night in Perth with 700 people, all they could raise was $200,000.